Change: Scarecrow (Batman AU)
by Reptile 06
Summary: Part of Change oneshot series. It's been 7 years since Batman saw or heard of Jonathan Crane AKA the Scarecrow. After relentless searching Batman has finally found him in a small French town South of Paris...


p style="line-height: 1.8em; color: #333333; font-family: -apple-system, '.SFNSText-Regular', 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Lucida Grande', Tahoma, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; background-color: #fefefe; clear: none !important;"3rd Person View:/p  
p style="line-height: 1.8em; color: #333333; font-family: -apple-system, '.SFNSText-Regular', 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Lucida Grande', Tahoma, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; background-color: #fefefe; clear: none !important;" /p  
p style="line-height: 1.8em; color: #333333; font-family: -apple-system, '.SFNSText-Regular', 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Lucida Grande', Tahoma, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; background-color: #fefefe; clear: none !important;" A suburb of small French homes with white picket fences tiny vegetable gardens; that's where Batman finally finds Jonathan Crane, or Johnathan Rogers as he has been living as. Jonathan Crane's hideout, Batman can't bear to use the word home, is a pale yellow cottage style house with white trim everything about it suggests that the owner is as normal as anyone else. In the backyard is a pool with a teenage girl in it a patio. On the patio is a gazebo with some outdoor furniture. There, in one of 2 loungers, is the self proclaimed fear master holding hands with another man. The man, Batman found out a few days prior, is former police officer Jean Baptiste d'Ailly has been Crane's husband for 3 years. For a while, Batman's eyes were only on the husbands. Both of them are in their late 50s/early 60s, both have intelligent light blue eyes both have gray hair (Crane's is still long shaggy while d'Ailly's is slicked back). Crane is still tall, thin pale but he has more wrinkles his skin sags more. d'Ailly is a little bit shorter but is built like a line backer. His skin is a tan color from spending so much time outside. The 2 men simply watch the young girl do laps in the pool while speaking softly to each other occasionally gaze at each other lovingly. Laying by d'Ailly is a German Shepherd taking a nap, enjoying the golden years of his retirement./p  
p style="line-height: 1.8em; color: #333333; font-family: -apple-system, '.SFNSText-Regular', 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Lucida Grande', Tahoma, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; background-color: #fefefe; clear: none !important;" /p  
p style="line-height: 1.8em; color: #333333; font-family: -apple-system, '.SFNSText-Regular', 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Lucida Grande', Tahoma, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; background-color: #fefefe; clear: none !important;" Batman turns his attention back to the pool. The lone girl is tall pale but slim athletic. She has deep blue eyes ginger hair that curls into short locks. The girl, named Luna, is 17 has the same pointed chin, long limbs cheek bones as Jonathan Crane; but of course she would, she is his daughter after all... Batman, still hidden in the shadows, watches the scene as the day goes on. Around 1, everyone comes together for lunch, which per the French tradition is a grand, all out affair. Afterwards Luna played Frisbee with the German Shepherd, who is apparently named Daphne (for an old dog he is surprisingly spry). This went on for about an hour until the heat of the day became too much everyone went inside. For the next several hours, the house was something of a calm whirlwind. d'Ailly, Crane Luna flitted from room to room in the house; doing things like violin practice, paying bills, grading university papers reading the newspaper. It was like this for several hours until 8 o'clock at night, at this point they all had dinner proceeded to watch the French version of who wants to be a millionaire. All through out this, Batman saw Luna lightly tease her father stepfather, they lightly teased her back the whole evening was filled with laughter smiles. At 10 Luna retired to bed, stating that she had an early Tennis meeting in the morning. Theo, the dog spent the afternoon in various rooms napping, followed her to her room curled up at the foot of her bed. An hour later Jean Baptiste went to bed Crane was the only one left./p  
p style="line-height: 1.8em; color: #333333; font-family: -apple-system, '.SFNSText-Regular', 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Lucida Grande', Tahoma, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; background-color: #fefefe; clear: none !important;" /p  
p style="line-height: 1.8em; color: #333333; font-family: -apple-system, '.SFNSText-Regular', 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Lucida Grande', Tahoma, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; background-color: #fefefe; clear: none !important;" Batman couldn't believe that the man in front of him was Jonathan Crane, the man that used psychological torture on his victims before murdering them. This man was not Jonathan Crane, he looked like him, but this was not the foe that Batman faced for so many years. This was not the man with so much hate rage at the world, this was not the man with the obsession of fear. This was a family man, a quiet man with a loving husband daughter who loved them in return; this was not a man ruled by an extreme fascination, the only thing obsessive about him was the way he corrected his English students' grammar (in his defense some of his students had absolutely atrocious English grammar)./p  
p style="line-height: 1.8em; color: #333333; font-family: -apple-system, '.SFNSText-Regular', 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Lucida Grande', Tahoma, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; background-color: #fefefe; clear: none !important;" /p  
p style="line-height: 1.8em; color: #333333; font-family: -apple-system, '.SFNSText-Regular', 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Lucida Grande', Tahoma, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; background-color: #fefefe; clear: none !important;" Crane strolled into his office (which was really just an enclosed porch) towards his desk. He took out a stack of papers a few envelopes. At this point he left the room made his way to the backyard. He stood there, looking up at the sky, staring at the stars the moon, for a few moments. Batman finally came out of the shadows made himself known to the man still wanted in America for his crimes. "It's been a while." "Ah Batman." Jonathan answered, his voice a bit weaker from age but with a foreign tinge from living in a foreign country for so many years, "I was wondering when you show yourself." Batman stood side by side with him, he turned his head towards the sky as well. "Beautiful night." he said. "I've become fond of stars since I moved here." Crane explained, "it is the same sky as back in Gotham but it feels so different." They were silent for several minutes. "Are you here to whisk me away to Gotham to be tried for my sins?" Jonathan Crane questions, "are you here to finally put Jonathan Crane behind bars?" "If there was a Jonathan Crane." Batman replied. With a shocked expression, so very unbecoming of a former master criminal, Crane gaped at Batman. "Is this your attempt at humor?" he asked. Batman gave him a look in response. Batman saw all the tension leave Johnathan Rogers' body with a deep breath out. "I guess I won't be needing these then." he declared before tearing up the envelopes, "was it the name that gave me away?" "Only the Rogers part." Batman answered, "your nod to psychologist Carl Rogers was your undoing. Smart idea switching up the spelling of your first name though." "Thank you." Silence enveloped the 2 once more. "Do they know?" Batman inquired. "Jean does." Johnathan answered, "right before I proposed to him I told him. Luna knows I left Gotham because of some wrongdoings, but not the exact nature of them." There was silence once more. "I should go." Batman stated suddenly. "Before you do," Rogers spoke, "there is a favor I wish to ask of you." Rogers handed Batman the stack of papers; the first page was a title page that read: em style="line-height: 1.8em; color: inherit !important; font-family: inherit !important; font-size: inherit !important; clear: none !important;"Why I Did It: A Memoir About Written By Jonathan Crane, the Scarecrow./em Batman said nothing, he simply nodded his head disappeared with a swish of his cape; leaving Johnathan Rogers to star gaze in his backyard./p 


End file.
